The story of two guys on a world-trip

San Jose, Arenal and Monteverde

San Jose

Our first day in Costa Rica was pretty intense! We landed in San Jose the same day as the National Football team: the entire city and its main roads were closed or packed up with Ticos (Costaricans) and it took us nearly 3h to go from the airport to our hostel, compared to the usual 30 min ride!

Mariposa from San Jose National Museum

Let’s face it, there is nothing to do in San Jose: the city is not very secured and not appealing at all. No colonial buildings, the main street is cramped and dark and the streets are not very welcoming at night… Nevertheless, here are some pictures of San Jose!

The Mercado Central

Central Park

Watching the world cup on the streets!

Arenal

The next day, we moved from San Jose to La Fortuna, base camp for Arenal’s activities: Arenal is an active volcano located in the North-West of Costa Rica, but its volcanic activity is decreasing every day since the last eruption in 1968 and it’s not possible to see lava anymore (we can’t seem to get lucky with that).

Arenal volcano and Cerro Chato on its right

The weather was pretty bad around the volcano, and it was hard to have a good view. We decided to climb Cerro Chato, another volcanic cone located next to Arenal with a lake on the top. The 3-hours hike in the rainforest was great, but the view on top was a little bit cloudy!

Selfie time with our freshly met new friend Roshin!

Arriving at the volcano lake, that Arthur had to go swim in. He disappeared in the fog within 2 minutes

A medical course with medicinal plants after the hike

Monteverde

Disappointed by Arenal, we left the next morning for Monteverde, through a Jeep-Boat-Jeep journey on the Arenal Lake! Monteverde is located in the rainforest and the nights can be pretty cold. The first thing we did in Monteverde was horse riding: we took the afternoon to explore the region on horses though the rainforest: the trip was great and we received shots of local alcohol after the ride!

Monteverde was also the perfect location to cross something out of our To-Do list: Bungee Jumping!!! The Extremo Park is home of the highest jump in Latin America (143 meters!). The jump was short but intense!

We don’t have a video of the jump, since they didn’t allow us to bring the Gopro. Instead they make their own video (a bad one) and try to sell it to you… But Monteverde was nice. Next stop, the beach!